Why third party candidates can't win in Alabama (George Talbot)

View full sizeAn artist's depiction of "Citizen Know Nothing," representing the ideal of the Know-Nothing Party.

Here’s how to win a south Alabama bar bet: Name the last person to represent the 1st Congressional District who wasn’t a Republican or a Democrat.

Answer: Percy Walker, who held the seat from 1855-1857 as a member of the Know-Nothing Party.

I know what you’re thinking: That is an awesome name for a political party. More on them later. The point is it’s been a very long time since anyone held the office who wasn’t an R or a D – and that trend isn’t likely to end anytime soon.

That’s because Alabama is one of the toughest states in America to run outside of the two major parties.

To qualify for the ballot, third-party and independent candidates must collect signatures from at least 3 percent of voters who participated in the most recent gubernatorial election.

That is a tall order under any circumstances – actually, it’s one of the highest thresholds in the nation – but it’s near impossible in a special election like the one that will be held in the 1st District.

Small-party candidates must submit petitions signed by 5,938 district voters who cast ballots in the 2010 governor’s race. Those signatures must then be verified – individually – by staffers at the Alabama Secretary of State’s office.

If that’s not hard enough, the 1st District candidates must also race against a clock that they can’t see.

The petition deadlines won’t be known until Gov. Robert Bentley sets the election calendar, which may not happen until after Bonner leaves office on Aug. 15.

Current projections put the primary elections in mid-October, meaning that minor party candidates will have about two months to certify their petitions. While they burn valuable time and money just getting qualified, their major-party rivals can focus on campaigning and fundraising.

“I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong,” said state Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster. “We ought to be making it easier for people to run for political office, not putting unnecessary burdens in front of them.”

Ward has been pushing legislation for nearly a decade that would ease Alabama’s ballot access laws, lowering the number of signatures required and giving third parties more time to collect them.

Ward introduced his latest version of the bill during this year’s legislative session, where it achieved rare bipartisan consensus: Everybody hated it.

“My own party certainly opposed the bill, and the Democrats didn’t care for it either,” he said. “We weren’t successful, but I’ve yet to hear a logical argument for why it’s not a good idea.”

It’s been a long dry spell for third parties in Alabama, but they have made strides in recent years.

In the 1st District race in 2010, the Constitution Party of Alabama nominated David Walter, who captured 17 percent of the vote in a losing bid against Bonner.

Walter, of Orange Beach, said he spent several thousand dollars and the better part of six months collecting signatures to qualify for the race.

"I guess the 1st district was not ready for a third party," Walter said after the election.

This time around, the Constitution Party has neither the time nor the money required to gather 6,000 signatures, according to chairman Joshua Cassity.

Cassity said the cost of completing a petition could run in excess of $10,000.

“If the state reduces the signatures, we will enter the race and begin an immediate search for candidates,” he said.

There already is one independent candidate, James Hall of Stapleton, who has declared his intention to run in the special election and is busy trying to raise signatures.

Ballot access alone would be a victory for Hall and other outside candidates. Capturing a seat held by the GOP since 1965 is another matter. But the underdogs can take encouragement in the fact that more Americans than ever – some 40 percent, according to Gallup – identify themselves as political independents.

The old Know-Nothings, who campaigned to end the immigration of Irish Catholics into America, were swept into the dustbins of history in 1860. They may have peaked in 1856, when their most famous member – former President Millard Fillmore – carried the party’s banner in an unsuccessful bid for re-election.